Programme Notes | 10/02/2012
Cadogan Hall | 10 February 2012
The London Chamber Orchestra
Christopher Warren-Green | Caroline Goulding
Walton Crown Imperial
Bruch Scottish Fantasy
Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5 in D major
Crown Imperial
William Walton (1902-1983)
William Walton, when writing his march, Crown Imperial, had Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches in mind. Indeed, some have snidely nick-named Walton’s march ‘Pomp and Circumstance march number 6’. It is therefore a surprise to find that, although the big tune from Pomp and Circumstance number 1 found its way into Elgar’s Coronation Ode for Edward VII, it was Walton’s orchestral marches, not Elgar’s, that started out as royal commissions. Walton’s second march, Orb and Sceptre, was written for the coronation of Elizabeth II; his first, Crown Imperial, was also performed on that occasion, but was in fact first written for the coronation of Edward VIII in 1937. When that particular ceremony was cancelled as a consequence of Edward’s abdication the piece was used at the coronation of George VI. The piece was also performed – by the LCO – at the wedding of Prince William and Katherine Middleton in 2011.
Walton’s march Crown Imperial, like Elgar’s first Pomp and Circumstance march, provides both a triumphant piece of celebratory music and a rousing tune. But we should be careful of thinking that both Walton and Elgar were merely playing to the gallery.
Elgar’s marches take their name from Shakespeare’s Othello. However the score of the first march is given an epigraph not from Shakespeare but from de Tabley’s poem The March of Glory. Although the lines from De Tabley’s suggest the traditional, dulce et decorum image of war, Othello uses the words when lamenting a role he has lost, not a battle he is looking forward to, suggesting that Elgar’s relationship with his title was more complicated than it might at first seem. Walton’s title might also be presumed to come from Shakespeare. Indeed in Henry V the king uses the phrase when reflecting on the substance of royalty before Agincourt – an apt source of inspiration for a coronation, perhaps. A few years after writing Crown Imperial Walton was to write the music for Olivier’s war-time film of Henry V. But a reading of Shakespeare’s play would have reminded Walton that for Henry V ‘the crown imperial sleeps’ far less comfortably than a ‘wretched slave’, suggesting the role of king is a mixed blessing at best. When choosing an epigraph for the score of his march Walton actually quotes not Shakespeare but a line from Scottish poet William Dunbar’s poem In Honour of the City of London – ‘In beawtie beryng the crone imperiall’. Dunbar’s text is a straightforward piece of praise about ‘the flower of cities all’. The choice of an obscure source for an obvious text suggests that Walton, whilst providing kings, queens and audiences with magnificent music, is also mindful of some ironical overtones.
© Rupert Merson
Scottish Fantasy
Max Bruch (1838-1920)
I Introduction: Grave – Adagio cantabile
II Allegro – Adagio
III Adagio – Andante sostenuto
IV Finale: Allegro guerriero
The German Max Bruch wrote his Scottish Fantasy for the Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate. As a consequence of a brief altercation between composer and dedicatee, the piece was premiered by the Hungarian Joseph Joachim in England in 1881 – but Bruch thought that Joachim ruined the piece at the premier, and once composer and dedicatee were reconciled, Sarasate performed the piece with a great deal of success for the remainder of his career. Each of the four movements of the Scottish Fantasy is based on a different Scottish tune, found by Bruch in a volume in the library in Munich. Max Bruch was an enormous admirer of Scottish song, preferring Scottish folk melody to his native German, but though he spent some time in England directing the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, he never actually visited Scotland. Bruch’s impression of what it meant to be Scottish was largely derived from Sir Walter Scott, whose writings he hugely admired.
The first movement, following a sombre introduction, is based on ‘Through the wood, laddie’. The harp is given a prominent role; indeed the original title of the work was ‘Fantasy for Violin with Orchestra and Harp, freely using Scottish folk melodies’.
The second movement, a scherzo, is mostly based on ‘The dusty miller’, and is as feisty as the first movement is heartfelt, until ,that is, the first movement’s theme, ‘Through the wood, laddie’, returns in the movement’s closing bars.
The third movement follows on directly from the second and is based on ‘I’m a doun for lack o’ Johnnie’. When sung, the words of the song give the performer little room for manoeuvre: I'm a' doun, doun, doun, I'm doun for lack o' Johnnie; I'm a' doun, doun, doun, I'm doun for lack o' Johnnie.
Bruch’s response is a set of moving variations, taking the audiece back the soulful mood of the first movement.
The last movement’s theme is the most familiar – ‘Scots, whae hae’. For many Scots, the words Robert Burns wrote for what was an older tune, have become an unofficial national anthem. The song is sung at the end of the Scottish National Party’s annual conference. Burns gives his words to Robert Bruce marching to Bannockburn, and Bruch’s music is appropriately martial, as his unusual tempo marking suggests.
© Rupert Merson
Symphony No. 5 in D major
Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958)
I Preludio: Moderato
II Scherzo: Presto mysterioso
III Romanza: Lento
IV Passacaglia: Moderato
Vaughan Williams fifth symphony contrasts with his fourth. The earlier piece is a dissonant, violent, troubled piece. Although the fourth was the first of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies not to have a title, it nonetheless seems very much a reflection of the difficult early 1930s in which it was written. It is difficult, however, to associate the fifth symphony, also untitled, with its historical context. Although written between 1938 and 1943 (and thus against the backcloth of some of the darkest years of the 20th century), the fifth symphony is one of Vaughan Williams’ gentlest, marking a return to the pastoral, gentle, ‘English’ tone that characterises much of his music, and which, still, only too often calls forth patronising noises from those determined not to acknowledge the achievements of one of England’s finest composers.
But we are given clues to the symphony’s genesis. It shares much material with Vaughan Williams’ opera (or ‘morality’, as he preferred to call it), The Pilgrim’s Progress, based on John Bunyan’s tale of Christian’s journey to the Celestial City (or ‘Pilgrim’s’ journey, as Vaughan Williams pointedly renamed his hero). Drafts of the symphony’s third movement originally carried as an epigraph some of John Bunyan’s words from The Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘Upon this land stood a cross, and a little below a sepulchre. Then he said: “He hath given me rest by His sorrows and life by His death.”’ Unsurprisingly, perhaps, some contemporary listeners heard in the peaceful pages of the fifth symphony valedictory notes of resignation on the part of its seventy year old composer. But history certainly showed otherwise: Vaughan Williams had another fifteen years to live, and another four symphonies to write.
Other ambiguities haunt the music. The piece is dedicated ‘To Jean Sibelius, without permission.’ (Why ‘without’? we wonder.) Vaughan Williams’ score tells us the piece is in D major, yet when in D it is D minor that often seems to dominate; and an extended C pedal point drags the music down in effect to a tonality based on C for much of the first movement. When the music pulls itself together it seems to settle not in D but first in E major, and then G major. Indeed, early piano scores describe the symphony as being in G major, not D major at all. The first movement ends with a C pedal point troublingly reasserting itself once again.
Vaughan Williams puts his short scherzo second. The tonality of the scherzo is more modal and pentatonic than major/minor, and more ‘mysterioso’ than ‘presto’, but its playful uncertainties settle down to provide a satisfying introduction to the longer third, slow movement which, though it has a briefly anxious central section, is, by and large, expansive, restful and serene, with lovely melodies provided by solo cor anglais at its beginning and solo violin towards the end. The slow movement also draws more than any of the other movements on themes shared with his The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The last movement resolutely starts in D major. Although it is also comes to be a little troubled by the major/minor, D/C ambiguity of the first movement, the last movement’s principal ambiguity is one of form. It is described as a Passacaglia – a form in which a repeating motive usually in the bass provides a platform for a set of variations. Yet Vaughan Williams abandons the passacaglia form before the movement concludes movingly over a determined D pedal point, with echoes of the themes and the mood of tranquillity initially proposed in the first movement.
© Rupert Merson
For more information on Vaughan Williams, please visit The RVW Society: widening the understanding and appreciation of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams.